Timothy Carolla Jr. holds a Bachelors of Music (BM) from George Mason University in Classical Guitar Performance, as well as an Masters of Music (MM) and Graduate Performance Diploma from Longy School of Music of Bard College in Jazz/Free Jazz Performance. Carolla did extensive graduate work with the great free jazz guitarist Joe Morris (New England Conservatory) in the Boston area on Thelonious Monk’s music, transcribing a large number of his solos and characteristic playing style and doing in depth work and research on how to make his style work on the guitar.

Carolla started to take music lessons around the age of twelve and after taking an interest in alternative rock, soon shifted into fingerstyle guitar playing. After playing music with friends and in local bands, Carolla attended GMU where he studied classical guitar with Larry Snitzler, a former student of Andres Segovia, this is also where he took an interest in jazz through his younger brother who was studying jazz drumming, and related styles based in improvisation, and he received a minor in jazz performance at that time. He ended up continuing his study in both fields after a lesson and a recommendation from Joe Morris, to join the “Modern American Music,” program at Longy, where he would study free jazz/improv with classical and contemporary classical music in a unique program there that is much like the Contemporary Improvisation Program at the nearby New England Conservatory.

Carolla has performed in masterclasses for numerous classical guitarists including Roland Dyens, Margarita Escarpa and Carlos Barbosa-Lima, and presented his own arrangements to Carlos Perez and R. Dyens. Carolla co-leads a band now locally in the DC area with his younger brother and plays in two other bands in the area, and performs as a solo musician and parts of various jazz groups and classical music ensembles, as well as teaching all levels from children to adults.